Netflix has campaigned hard for its place at the awards table, and it is paying off: Robin Wright scored a Golden Globe on Sunday for her role in the TV drama “House of Cards,” while in September David Fincher won a best director Emmy for the series, Netflix’s first.

Thursday, the documentary “The Square,” which chronicles the Egyptian revolution, was nominated for an Oscar. The movie will begin a select theater run Friday, while simultaneously streaming on Netflix.

Why did you decide to sign with Netflix to stream your film? Did you feel as if you’d ultimately get a larger viewing audience?

Karim Amer: Absolutely. Netflix, from a distribution perspective, understands the changing landscape of how people are consuming content. We’re excited about being their first official documentary – they really believe in the film and are standing up to support it.

Jehane Noujaim: We wanted to choose a place that we knew would reach the widest and most diverse audience, and because of the relatively low cost of Netflix, we felt this was the place where the film would be viewed most widely.

Amer: It’s interesting, because a few years ago, if you even brought up streaming rights with filmmakers, they wouldn’t even care.

Noujaim: I don’t even know who has the streaming rights for “Startup.com” [her 2001 documentary about the dot-com boom and bust], I have to figure that out. “Control Room” [her 2004 documentary on Al Jazeera] is up for free on youTube.